Method and apparatus for implementing a personal “get out the vote drive” software application

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus for a software tool that interfaces with a Field Operations software tool and incorporates Voter Score, Voter Scorecard, Post-Election Voter History, Household Visualization, Voter Support Visualization, Household Mailing Labels, E-Mail Voter Footer, and Voter List of Friends and Family.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application60/836,712, filed on Aug. 10, 2006, which is incorporated herein byreference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed to providing a method and apparatusfor campaign field operations in order to effectively identify likelyvoters and educate and motivate the general public to vote via asoftware applications tool, and more particularly, to a method andapparatus that makes public voter records available and allows for thegeneral public to participate in a campaign's field operations via anInternet web site.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Motivating citizens to vote and influencing their decision on who tovote for are critical parts of election campaigns, and “get out thevote” (or GOTV) technologies and techniques are used to motivatecitizens to vote and to influence who they vote for.

There are currently two recognized categories of GOTV activity, that is:(i) Field Operations, which target likely voters, and (ii) GOTV Drives,which aim to educate and motivate the American public to vote. Each willbe discussed in turn below:

(i) Field Operations: Field Operations are run by Campaigns andOrganizations (such as political parties, labor unions, and grassrootsorganizations) with the purpose of Targeting Likely Voters. The firststep of a field operation is to narrow the list of all voters to asmaller list of targets. The second step is to contact these targetedvoters and “ID” them on level of support—who is a strong supporter, alean supporter, an undecided, a lean against and a strong against. Thethird step is to communicate with the lean supports and the undecidedvia phone calls, targeted mailings, e-mails, and in-person door knockingto solidify their support (with the potential to bump up their IDedsupport). The final step occurs just before Election Day when all thestrong and lean supports are contacted and reminded to go vote.

Selection of who should be targeted is critical to the success of aField Operation. The primary factor is Voter History. For instance, acandidate running in the Democratic Primary would want to targetDemocrats that have voted in previous Primaries. Other secondary factorscan come into play, such as demographics (a Korean candidate would wanther targeting weighted in favor of fellow Koreans) and geography (a CityCouncilman running for Mayor would want his targeting weighted in favorof residents of his current district).

However, no method exists that provides a way of measuring voter historyand assigning a number to it. Likewise, no method exists forcharacterizing and indexing the voting tendency of an entire householdof voters, lists of voters, or clusters of voters.

(ii) GOTV Drives: The second category is what is commonly thought of as“get out the vote” (hereinafter “GOTV”) drives, or GOTV Drives. Theseare typically run by non-partisan, non-profit organizations and arecomprised of television, radio, and print ads, public serviceannouncements, and voter registration drives with the aim to Educate andMotivate the American Public to Vote. An example of a GOTV Drive wouldbe the “Rock the Vote” initiative aimed at youth.

The last few years have seen an explosion of online Internet and E-Mailpolitical activity. Existing technologies and techniques have provedeffective for both fundraising and activist mobilization (such asvolunteer recruitment and hosting events). However, these existingtechnologies and techniques have been entirely ineffective in educatingand motivating the American public to vote. An example of this is theHoward Dean Presidential Campaign of 2004.

In addition, there has not existed any system that allows for thegeneral public to view voter records including voter history, even theirown. Voter records are public records, which are available at local andstate Board of Election offices and that also contain privateinformation such as birthdates, phone numbers, and addresses, includingapartment numbers. This private information has been a barrier toproviding these records online (or even through analogue means) to thegeneral public.

With “raw” voter records being unavailable to the general public, thishas in turn prevented a derived characterization or summary of votinghistory being made available to the public. More broadly, with voterrecords being unavailable to the public, this has prevented thedevelopment of Personal GOTV Drive technologies that would allow acitizen to create a voter list of friends and family and takeresponsibility to ensure that they vote, including for endorsedcandidates.

Finally, there have been no systems that integrate new Personal GOTVDrive systems with existing Field Operations systems. This has preventedcampaigns and organizations from fully utilizing the power of Internetand E-Mail technologies in the field operations.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, various embodiments disclose campaign management tools thatmay be specifically tailored to provide a Personal “Get Out The VoteDrive” software tool that interfaces with a Field Operations softwaretool and incorporates Voter Score, Voter Scorecard, Voter HistoryAccountability after an Election, Household Visualization, HouseholdMailing Labels, E-Mail Voter Footer, and Voter List of Friends andFamily (collectively referred to hereinafter as the “Lincoln VotersInvention”).

The Lincoln Voters Invention may be sponsored by a Campaign orOrganization. Staff and Volunteers use the Field Operations subsystem,the General Public uses the Personal GOTV Drive subsystem, and theSubsystem Interface allows the two groups to act both independently andin concert as the situation demands.

In a preferred embodiment, the present invention is implemented as aweb-based software application with minor customizations specific toeach client. The framework of these embodiments is as follows:

1. The Lincoln Voters Invention includes two parts and their interface.The three pieces are named: the Field Operations subsystem; the PersonalGOTV Drive subsystem; and the Subsystem Interface.

2. The Personal GOTV Drive subsystem solves the puzzle of how to providepublic voter records to the General Public without violating PersonalPrivacy.

3. The Subsystem Interface solves the puzzle of how to allow the GeneralPublic to participate in a Field Operations subsystem without violatingpersonal privacy between the user and the Campaign or Organization. Italso solves the puzzle of how to allow this participation withoutcompromising confidential campaign information in the Field Operationssubsystem.

4. The Lincoln Voters Invention in its entirety solves the puzzle of howto Educate and Motivate the American Public to Vote.

5. Three standalone embodiments that improve existing Field Operationstools are Post-Election Voter History, Household Visualization, andHousehold Mailing Labels. The Post-Election Voter History is also animprovement to existing GOTV tools.

6. Two standalone embodiments within the Lincoln Voters Inventioninclude the summary Voter Score and detailed Voter Scorecard. Theseembodiments provide superior Field Operations tools, and are an entirelynew method of Educating and Motivating the American Public to Vote.

7. Another standalone embodiment within the Lincoln Voters Invention isthe E-Mail Voter Footer. This is entirely new to existing FieldOperations tools, does not exist in any form for any purpose, and is anentirely new method of Educating and Motivating the American Public toVote.

8. Another standalone embodiment within the Lincoln Voters Invention isthe Voter List of Friends and Family. Similar tools already exist inexisting Field Operations tools but not in a form appropriate for aPersonal GOTV Drive tool. Thus it is an improvement to existing FieldOperation tools and an entirely new method of Educating and Motivatingthe American Public to Vote.

9. The Personal GOTV Drive subsystem may be defined by combining theE-Mail Voter Footer and the Voter List of Friends and Family. This iswhat makes it unique from any existing GOTV tools and entirely new.

The following is an outline of certain parameters (for predicting,influencing, and scoring voters) of the Lincoln Voters Invention, whichmay be broadly broken up into the following aspects: I) Data ingestionand cleaning for voter score and householding; II) Creating,calculating, and updating voter score; III) Hiding aspects of voter datafrom the general public; IV) Creation of groups and networks of voters;V) Displaying voter score and voter data in various formats to variousgroups; VI) Combining voter score data with field operations data andother data, in both directions, and VII) Allowing general public toaccess campaign's field operation tool.

The first aspect, data ingestion and cleaning for voter score andhouseholding, may include database creation and maintenance code withautomated algorithms and manual procedures that correct and clean voterdata. For example, in New York State alone, there are 58 distinctformats for Board of Elections data. Therefore, various embodimentsprovide for the standardizing data, such as streets with multiple names,and comparing ZIP codes, precinct numbers, and building numbers. Errorchecking and correction may also be performed, which can includecounting voters per phone number, correcting city and town names, andmerging voter histories into a single record based on the same birthdate and similar name and/or address. Then, voting precincts are cleanedso that people aren't assigned to incorrect precincts. Additionally, ascript may be provided to replace “No” votes with “N/A” votes based uponwhether the individual had an opportunity to vote. Weightings for “N/A”scorings can be made so that there was an actual election, instead ofnoise, including changes over time.

The second aspect, creating, calculating, and updating voter scores,provides a quick and easy tag to classify voters based upon their votinghistories. A voter may be ineligible to vote due to lack of a primary ina registered political party, or due to his or her age on the electiondate. Opportunities to vote distinguishes between those ineligible tovote vs. those who are eligible but chooses not to vote. A voter scoremay be defined as the actual number of votes divided by theopportunities to vote, which creates a consistent rating. In some cases,a sliding timeframe of measurement allows the vote score to be updatedover time. In some embodiments, a requirement of multiple votes in aparty and precinct to qualify as a “primary” precinct can account fornoise in the underlying data. Additionally, multiple vote requirementmay be tuned to fit the noise level, including the number of partymembers in a precinct and length of time since election. Certainembodiments allow an administrator to provide input on districts togenerate “primary” precincts. Various embodiments permit measuring theeffectiveness of GOTV techniques or responsible individuals, includingthrough the use of “control” groups. Also, when raw voter data getsupdated, certain embodiment permit the option of keeping the old dataactive and de-duping records.

The third aspect, hiding personal information linked to voter score, isprovided so that remaining data can be made available to the generalpublic. For example, voters' house number and apartment are hidden.Certain relations between records may also be hidden, such as who liveswith a particular voter or everyone who lives in a particular building.Enhanced privacy may be provided to prevent the general area where avoter lives from being known, for instance hiding their poll sitelocation. Some searches may be forbidden that could indirectly revealhidden personal information. Other indirect means of ascertainingprivate voter information may also be forbidden, such as calculating thedisplayed age of a voter based upon the first of the month, so that if,for example, today the age of the voter were to go up by one year fromyesterday, such a query would not reveal that today is that voter'sbirthday.

The fourth aspect, creation of groups and networks of voters, providesbroad organizational relations management tools. Identity verificationmay be performed prior to linking a user to their voter record. Campaignfield operations may inject outside-in membership data to createtop-down groups. Individuals can create inside-out membership data tocreate grassroots efforts. Citizens may be permitted to trackinformation about friends and family to improve their GOTV effortsdirected at them. Information about a citizen's friends and family maybe hidden from the campaign's field operations team. Various embodimentsare able to create “non-voters” in the system, so that a user can puthimself or herself in the system or put email lists of non-voters in thesystem. A non-voter record may be subsequently be linked with a voterrecord, which then purges the “non-voter” status. Certain embodimentsprovide for the automatic creation of a non-voter record when a userregisters. Certain embodiments allow mutual friends to see each others'email addresses. A non-voter record in a household may also be created.Many embodiments provide the ability to send email using voter lists,including anonymous (both sender and receiver) emails. Some embodimentsprovide for the blocking of email, rather than unsubscribing, so thatemails can't be forwarded to a user (for example, blocking the emailfrom a particular user rather than from a group or organization). Aunique ID for voter ID and communication purposes may be created so thathackers cannot access same link (and thus block communications fromusers other than himself or herself). Certain embodiments provide forselective blocking of emails, so that a first user is permitted to blockemails from a second user but not from a third, or may block emails fromboth the second and third users but not the system.

The fifth aspect is displaying Voter Score information, and provides forthe displaying of the voter score to the general public, to the user, orto friends and family of users in an E-Mail footer. Voter scores ofgroups and lists may also be displayed, as well as pledged votes vs.actual votes. Campaign staff and volunteers may be provided such scores,including visualization details such as color coding.

The sixth aspect provides combining voter score information withcampaign field operations data. This may be used to influenceindividuals who are part of a household. Voter data and other linkeddata may be used to better identify who constitutes each household, andin the selection of who in a household a letter should be addressed to.Such decisions may depend on voter data and other linked data. Variousembodiments thus provide for the identification, selection or both ofthe voting members within a household. Moreover, specific embodimentsprovide for the identification, selection or both of the influentialmembers within a household, as well as the members interested in aparticular message. This assists to saves costs, and reduces multiplemailings to the same household. This also helps to ensure that thedesired member or members within a household open and read the mailing.Various embodiments thus permit campaign field operations to influencewho to target and to organically influence the other members of thehousehold. Specific embodiments may include additional data from sourcesother than voter data, such as adding confidential data from previouscampaigns, adding confidential data from polling and/or focus groups,and adding proxy data inferred from other sources. For example,households having only two men over the age of 40 living together withdifferent last names may be more likely to be a gay couple.

Finally, the seventh aspect allows the general public controlled accessto a campaign's field operation tools. Campaign field operations dataadded by the campaign about voters may be hidden. Information entered bythe general public about their friends and family may also be hidden. A“Friend ID” field may be used to help achieve privacy—if the field isblank then everyone can see the related item, while if it has a valuethen only that voter or user can see it. A “Voter Information Password”may also be used to help achieve privacy, and may be employed to verifythat a user is the voter he or she claims to be; for example, the usermay be required to enter the middle initial, birth month and year, andbuilding number of the voter.

The present invention, including its features and advantages, willbecome more apparent from the following detailed description withreference to the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an embodiment voter scorecard, in which a voter score with aquick summary is displayed in the top right portion of the scorecard.

FIG. 2 is an embodiment household visualization.

FIG. 3 is a detailed view of a portion of the household visualizationdepicted in FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 is an embodiment e-mail voter footer.

FIG. 5 is an embodiment voter support visualization.

FIG. 6 shows an embodiment user login page.

FIG. 7 shows an embodiment user registration screen, voter recordconfirmation.

FIG. 8 shows an embodiment screen that permits a member to edit theiraccount information.

FIG. 9 shows an embodiment screen that permits a member to edit theirendorsement information.

FIG. 10 shows an embodiment screen that permits a member to search voterrecords for friends and family.

FIG. 11 shows an embodiment screen that permits a user to create a newrecord of a friend or family member as an unregistered non-voter.

FIG. 12 shows an embodiment list of the friends and family members ascreated by a member and presented by the system.

FIG. 13 shows an embodiment screen that presents information about avoter and permits the member to add the found voter to the list offriends and family, or to link the found voter record to his or heraccount.

FIG. 14 shows an embodiment screen that permits a member to enterprofile information about a voter in the list of friends and family.

FIG. 15 shows an embodiment screen when viewing the endorsements of avoter that is not a mutual friend.

FIG. 16 shows an embodiment screen when viewing the voter history of avoter, such as a voter in the list of friends and family.

FIG. 17 shows an embodiment screen that permits a member to sende-mails, such as to voters on the list of friends and family.

FIG. 18 shows a preview screen of an example forwarded e-mail about tobe sent by a member.

FIGS. 19-20 shows an embodiment automatic demographic, geographic orpolitical analysis of an organization's membership list.

FIGS. 21-23 present an example screen shot of such a pledge report.

FIG. 24 shows a screen shot of a member forwarding a pre-written e-mailto another person.

FIG. 25 is a screen shot of an embodiment household display for fieldoperations.

FIG. 26 shows an embodiment filed operations display that permits fieldoperations staff to update voter information.

FIG. 27 shows an embodiment screen that permits an organization tointernally manage personnel.

FIG. 28 shows an embodiment screen that permits field organizationpersonnel to edit the political profile of a voter as determined by theorganization.

FIG. 29 shows an embodiment field operations contact history page for avoter.

FIG. 30 shows an embodiment screen that permits field operation staff tobuild their own Friends and Family list.

FIG. 31 shows an embodiment screen that permits field operation staff toenter profile information about a Friend that is kept private from theorganization's official identification of that voter.

FIG. 32 shows an embodiment screen for performing a fuzzy logic searchfor field operations staff to locate voter records.

FIG. 33 shows an embodiment walk sheet.

FIG. 34 shows an embodiment mailing label sheet.

FIG. 35 shows an embodiment report.

FIG. 36 shows an embodiment walk.

FIG. 37 illustrates the exporting of database information to aspreadsheet format.

FIG. 38 shows an embodiment screen for performing an e-mail blast.

FIG. 39 shows an embodiment listings of last logins to the system.

FIG. 40 shows an embodiment aggregate summary of all members' Friendsand Family list.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

FIGS. 1 through 5 and additional screen shots illustrate a method andrelated apparatus, which may be implemented as a software applicationthat interfaces with a campaign's field operations and allows for votereducation, motivation and getting voters out to vote.

A preferred embodiment will be explained first by detailing the computerhardware and software.

Server

In one embodiment of the present invention, users communicate with acentral server through the use of user terminals via the Internet. Suchcommunications could be continuous or on a batch basis.

The central server comprises a processor, memory (such as RAM or a harddisk), a communications port (capable of communicating with one or moreuser terminals), an input/output device (such as a keyboard or displayscreen), and software configured to perform an embodiment method.Exemplary servers include a 2.4 GHz Xeon processor with 512M of RAM andan 80 GB hard disk running Red Hat Enterprise Linux v.2.1.

Some or all of the server functions including, but not limited todatabase management and delivery functions could be held locally onsite,or outsourced to a hosting company such as HostGator, DreamHost, WebXessor Yahoo Hosting.

Note that the central server does not necessarily need to store thedatabase onsite. It may also access the databases which may be in remotelocations. The central server may also store a history and transactiondatabase about the various users.

User Terminal

In one embodiment, user terminals comprise a personal computer with aprocessor, memory (such as RAM or a hard disk), a communications port(capable of communicating with the central server), an input/outputdevice (such as a keyboard or display screen), and software configuredto perform an embodiment method, interface with the central server orboth. Exemplary user terminals include a Sony VAIO with an 866 MHzprocessor, 128M of RAM and an 80 GB hard disk, running Windows 2000 withInternet Explorer installed.

Database

The central server hosts a database of voter information. Hundreds offields of information and categorization are possible. The NationalPolitical Database, a top-level consolidated partial source from VCSprovides 300 different demographic breakdowns of only some of the data.In one embodiment of the invention, the database might include thefollowing types of information: Voter Name, including First Name, LastName, Middle Initial and Suffix; Voter Party Registration; VoterRegistration Date; Voter Birth date; Voter Gender; Voter PhysicalAddress; Voter Mailing Address; Voter Phone Number; Voter E-MailAddress; Voter History; Voter Support for Candidates or Issues; VoterMotivating Issues; Voter Affiliations; Voter Pledges to Vote; VoterPetition Signature Status; General Notes on Voter; User Lists of Friendsand Family; User Contacts with Voter; and Voter Score (which is anaspect unique to the instant invention).

Note that this is merely representative of the data types that could beincluded. Actual databases could contain hundreds of fields.

Server Application Code

The central server hosts server application code that, when executed,retrieves information from and writes information to the database, andreads information from custom configuration files. The application codeis designed to perform the various steps described in the following. Thecomputer application code is executed when a user interacts with theuser terminal, which transmits requests to the server, and in turnreceives a response with both data and client application code. Theserver application code can also initiate other actions, such as sendingelectronic e-mail or access a backup database. Any suitable programminglanguage may be used to create the application code, the coding of whichshould be well within the means of one of reasonable skill in the artafter having the benefits of the instant disclosure and related figures.

Client Application Code

The central server sends client application code to the user terminalthat the user terminal then executes. This code allows for dynamicdisplay, input, and manipulation of data.

Database Creation, Update, and Maintenance Code

The central server hosts additional server application code that mayonly be accessed by the administrator to create, update and maintain thedata in the database.

Original “raw” data comes from multiple sources, for instance the countyBoard of Elections or commercial data vendors. This data also comes invarious formats. In New York State alone there are 58 distinct formatsfor Board of Elections data.

In order for certain embodiments to perform efficiently and accurately,all the data is preferably standardized to a single format.

In addition, raw data contains errors and omissions. In order forvarious embodiments to perform efficiently and accurately, these errorsshould be detected and corrected.

In general, there are four types of data checks that are made:

1. Internal Inconsistencies. For example, twenty voters have the samehouse number, street and city (i.e., the same building) but eighteenhave one ZIP code and the remaining two have a different ZIP code.

2. External Inconsistencies. For example, when voter data is joined withblock-by-block mapping data, the street name “Eight Avenue” in the voterdata doesn't match any street in the mapping data. This provides analert that an error exists, and in this case the street name should be“Eighth Avenue”.

3. Anomalies. This occurs when there are very few voters that share acharacteristic. For example, there might be only a single voter listedas living in the city of “Utica” in Westchester County. This provides analert that an error exists, and in the case Utica is not a city inWestchester County.

4. Patterns. For example, buildings on “Sixth Avenue” may share allother characteristics (like ZIP code and precinct) with buildings on“Avenue of the Americas”. This alerts that an error exists, and in thiscase that these are two names are for the same street and must becombined into one.

In one embodiment, database creation code is provided with automatedalgorithms and manual procedures that correct and clean voterinformation. One example of how, in the current embodiment, voter datais cleaned and corrected is exemplified below:

The system identifies: 300 voters On Sea View Avenue, and 12 voters onSeaview Avenue. The system recognizes that the Board of Elections datamay be in error. The system thus corrects all voters in the database toSea View Avenue, the proper address.

Another example of database creation code with automated algorithms andmanual procedures can be seen in how, in the current embodiment, thesystem may resolve changing geographical names and streets with multiplenames. For example, Avenue of the Americas is the same street as SixthAvenue, and a portion of Lenox Avenue has been renamed to Malcolm XBoulevard.

In one embodiment the system uses clustering to correct the data bylooking for buildings on different streets that have the same Precinctsand ZIP codes. For example: 100 Sixth Ave.=100 Ave. of Americas=30-13Precinct=10035 ZIP; 120 Sixth Ave.=120 Ave. of Americas=30-13Precinct=10035 ZIP; 125 Sixth Ave.=125 Ave. of Americas=30-16Precinct=10035 ZIP; 135 Sixth Ave.=135 Ave. of Americas=30-17Precinct=10036 ZIP.

If all the buildings on two different streets match both precinct andZIP codes, there is a good chance that the two street names are actuallythe same street. Precincts are smaller units than ZIP codes and arespecific to voter data.

Various embodiments make use of the precinct information to correctmistakes in the voter data as provided by, for example, the BOE. Becauseprecincts are much smaller than ZIP codes, they provide what may bethought of as a second address. Using this precinct information, a voterfile may be “cleaned.” A pattern-recognition algorithm may be used togenerate such cleaned data. By way of example, consider the followinginformation obtained from the voter information:

TABLE 1 City Street1 Street2 HN LN PP ZP HP1 HP2 M1 M2 NEW YORK 1ST AVEUNITED NATIONS 4 100 100 100 1 31 1 0 PLAZA NEW YORK 6TH AVE AVENUE OF54 11 100 98 39 84 0 1 THE AMERICAS NEW YORK 7TH AVE ADAM C 48 23 83 10015 94 1 1 POWELL BLVD NEW YORK 7TH AVE FASHION AVE 3 33 100 100 1 50 1 1NEW YORK 8TH AVE FREDERICK 85 27 84 100 20 87 1 0 DOUGLASS BLVD NEW YORKALBANY ST RECTOR PL 1 100 100 100 11 8 1 1 NEW YORK ANN ST PACE PLAZA 10 100 100 11 100 1 0 NEW YORK AUDUBON AVE W 193RD ST 3 33 100 100 3 25 11 NEW YORK BARUCH DR BARUCH PL 2 100 100 100 12 25 1 1 NEW YORK BATTERYGOVERNORS 1 0 100 100 100 25 0 1 PARK PLAZA ISLAND NEW YORK BATTERY SEND AVE 1 0 100 100 100 5 0 1 PARK PLAZA NEW YORK BAXTER ST BAYARD ST 560 100 100 22 15 1 1 NEW YORK BAYARD ST MULBERRY ST 10 50 80 100 30 8 11 NEW YORK BIALYSTOKER PL WILLETT ST 3 33 100 100 75 100 1 0 NEW YORKBOGARDUS PL ELLWOOD ST 1 100 100 100 12 3 1 1 NEW YORK BOWERY PELL ST 617 83 83 4 25 1 1 NEW YORK CARMINE ST LEROY ST 9 11 100 100 22 28 1 1NEW YORK CATHEDRAL PKWY W 110TH ST 22 68 100 100 69 42 1 1 NEW YORKCENTRAL PARK N W 110TH ST 13 23 100 100 100 25 1 1 NEW YORK CENTRAL PARKS W 58TH ST 5 40 100 100 23 11 1 1 NEW YORK COLONEL ROBERT MAGAW PL 8 25100 100 100 62 1 0 MAGAW PL NEW YORK CONFUCIUS PLAZA DIVISION ST 2 100100 100 50 6 0 1

In the above Table 1, the columns and related calculations are: “HN”—thetotal number of house numbers that are common to both streets; “LN”—thepercent of those common buildings that have someone with the same lastname in both; “PP”—the percent of those common buildings that have beenassigned to the same precinct; “ZP”—the percent of those commonbuildings that have the same ZIP code; “HP1”—the percent of those commonbuildings compared to the total number on the first street; “HP2”—thepercent of those common buildings compared to the total number on thesecond street; “M1”—whether the first street name matches a street namefound in an external data source (such as Census Tiger/Line files ofcity blocks); and “M2”—whether the first street name matches a streetname found in an external data source (such as Census Tiger/Line filesof city blocks). All of this information can be extracted from voterrecords using known database programming techniques, andcross-referencing records against each other.

These measurements determine the possibility that two streets are infact the same street. It should be understood that there may be nohard-and-fast cutoff where certain values definitely indicate the samestreet. Instead, values are determined so that combinations that matchor exceed a minimum criteria are presented to the user for he or she tomake a final determination. Numerous combinations of the abovecalculation results may be used to make such a determination.

For example, the following criteria returns a list with a 40% likelihood(in Manhattan) of being the same street without excluding any:

(PP>=75 OR (HN<=3 AND PP>=30)) AND (ZP>0 OR HN=1) AND (LN>0 OR HP1>=80OR HP2>=80) AND (((ZP>=50 OR HN=1) AND ((lntot=1 AND HN=1) OR (lntot>=2AND HN<20) OR (LN>=10 AND HN>=20) OR (LN>=5 AND HP1>=50 OR HP2>=50))))OR M1=0 OR M2=0

Note that “lntot” in the above formula is the total number of commonbuildings that have someone with the same last name in both (similar to“LN” above, but just expressed differently). Note also that this samplealgorithm does not require that all common buildings have the sameprecincts and/or ZIP codes—this is to allow for mistakes in the voterfile.

In various embodiments, to clean the voter data the procedure is tocheck every street against every other street in a city and return thosethat match or exceed a minimum criteria, such as the one outlined above.In Staten Island for instance there are approximately 3000 streets, andso just under 10 million combinations may be checked and whittled downto a hundred or so possibilities for the administrator to decide on.

This pattern recognition procedure allows for matching streets withoutcomparing the actual street names. For instance, “GREENE STREET” and“GREEN STREET” appear to be similar, and a software algorithm can bedeveloped to compare the two names and return them if they are similarenough. The pattern recognition procedure, however, does not need tolook at the street names at all in making a determination. Thus, “SIXTHAVE” can be matched to “AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS”.

This pattern recognition procedure allows for the first time thedetection of what is called in the industry “boutique” street names. Itcan also be applied for detecting run-of-the-mill misspellings as well.This technique is ideally used for voter files because it makes use ofprecinct information.

For the internal and external inconsistencies mentioned above, anysuitable known technique used to find errors may be used. For instance,the algorithm may search for streets of the same type (“Place”,“Street”, “Ave.”, etc.) that have the same first five characters; thus,“GREENE STREET” and “GREEN STREET” may be suggested as possiblemisspellings.

However, precinct information may also be used for an additional levelof checking. Each street has a set of precincts determined by all theprecincts assigned to the buildings on that street. If the set ofprecincts are the same for two streets, or if one is a subset of theother, then this condition may be termed “PreSafe”. If there is at leastone common precinct in the two sets (but with each set having a precinctnot found in the other), this condition may be termed “PreOverlap”. Both“PreSafe” and “PreOverlap” street comparisons are likely to be the samestreet, whereas streets with no precincts in common at all are veryunlikely to be the same. Note that two streets can be “PreSafe” withoutsharing any common house numbers.

Hence, this precinct information in combination with last name and ZIPcode matches for common house numbers may be used to determine thechances that two streets are the same. “PreSafe” and “PreOverlap” couldbe further analyzed with percentages of matching precincts, but inpractice it may be sufficient to present this information to the usersince such corrections typically deal with name misspellings and in theend the street names themselves may be the determining factor.

Another embodiment can correct and clean precinct and ZIP Codes bylocating voters with the same house number, street and city butdifferent precincts or ZIP codes, and automatically correcting theprecincts or ZIP codes that have fewer voters with the one with themost.

Another embodiment can correct and clean apartment numbers by locatingvoters with the same address and phone number but different apartmentnumbers. A manual process can then determine which is the correctapartment number and fix the incorrect one.

Another embodiment can correct and clean phone numbers by counting thenumber of voters per phone number. Phone numbers assigned to too manyvoters (for example, over ten) are likely incorrect and can be eitherautomatically or manually deleted.

Another embodiment can correct and clean cities and towns. A list ofcities and towns can be generated with total counts of voters in each.Those cities and towns with too few voters (for example, less than 20)can be identified and renamed either automatically or manually. Asimilar process can be done for streets.

Another embodiment can merge two voter records, including their voterhistories, into a single record. Often, when a voter changes theirregistration, either the voter fills out the form incorrectly or theBoard of Election mishandles the change. This results in two (or more)voter records created for the same person.

Voters having multiple voter records may be identified by comparingvoters having: 1) the same birth date, 2) similar (but not necessarilyidentical) names and addresses, and 3) non-overlapping voter histories(for example, the latest “Yes” vote in one record comes before the first“Yes” vote in the other record). The invention can determine two recordsto be the same voter and merge them. For instance, Mary Smith and MaryJones may have the same birth date and live in the same building andneither has ever voted. This is likely the same woman who changed herlast name when she got married. This may be combined to create a singlevoter record (which may be the one having the latest registration date).

Voter Score

The voter score is a new method of summarizing voter histories into asingle number with qualifying symbols that is easy to understand. Avoter score is most often applied to a single voter, but can also becalculated and applied to lists and clusters of voters. The voter scoremay be calculated as a function of the number of times a voter has votedand the number of opportunities that voter has had to vote; for example,as the ratio of these two numbers. The voter score may be calculatedacross the entire voting history of the voter, or may be calculatedacross only a predetermined portion of the total history; for example,the voter score may be based upon the most recent four year's worth ofvoter data. Of course, other formulas may be used to generate othertypes of voter scores, or voter scores with different ranges. Inpreferred embodiments, however, the voter score has a value of 0.0 ifthe voter has never voted within the last four years, and a value of10.0 if the voter has a perfect voting record (i.e., has voted at everyopportunity within the last four years); score between these two extremepoints are proportional to the number of times the voted (that is, eachelection is accorded the same weight).

In one embodiment, the voter score takes into account that often a voteris ineligible to vote in a primary or special election. This may employsophisticated algorithms and is a new aspect independent of calculatingthe voter score.

In one embodiment, the voter score takes into account that young votersare ineligible to vote in any election before they turn 18 years of age.This may also employ sophisticated algorithms and is a new aspectindependent of calculating the voter score.

In one embodiment, the voter score takes into account that newlyregistered voters are ineligible to vote in any election before theyregistered.

The voter score is an important aspect of the various embodiments, asprior to the invention no such consolidated score for voting hadexisted. Assembling a voter score is time consuming, barrier-prone anderror-prone because voter data comes from different and inconsistentsources. Participation measures may be inconsistent, multipleoverlapping precincts (clusters of registered voters) may be involved,similar names may be confused and misspellings abound in name andaddress information.

The various embodiments solve the above puzzles by providing a reliableand audited voter score.

The voter score is also useful overall in aspects that are designed toeducate and motivate Americans to vote.

The voter score is an improvement over voter history displays inexisting field operations tools that only track and display whether anindividual has voted in specific elections and do not provide a singlesummary rating of the voter.

In one embodiment, the voter score summarizes lists and clusters ofvoters. This is a new aspect for both field operations and GOTV tools.

In one embodiment, voter score clustering can be used to supportembodiments tailored towards post-election voter histories, which is animprovement to existing field operations tools.

In one embodiment, the voter score is used as an important element forembodiments tailored towards household visualization and householdmailing labels, both of which are improvements to existing fieldoperations tools.

In one embodiment, the voter score is used as an important elementwithin embodiments directed towards e-mail voter footers, also a newaspect.

In one embodiment, the voter score is provided to the general public asan important element within an embodiment personal GOTV drive subsystem.

In one embodiment, the voter score is used as an important elementwithin embodiments directed towards voter lists of friends and family,which is a new aspect as applied to GOTV tools.

In one embodiment, the voter score is displayed electronically, eitheron a website or in an e-mail. In an alternate embodiment, the voterscore is displayed on printed paper or provided verbally to the generalpublic.

Voter Score Number and Qualifying Symbol

In one embodiment, the voter score is a number ranging from 0.0 to 10.0that summarizes the recent voter history and rates voters on a uniformscale. In addition, a qualifying symbol may be appended whenappropriate, such as an asterisk, to indicate a special feature ofinterest, such as that the voter has participated in at least one recentprimary election.

In one embodiment, the voter score is calculated by taking the number oftimes a person voted in the last four years and dividing that by thenumber of opportunities he or she had to vote during that same timeperiod, multiplying the fractional result by 10 and rounding to thefirst decimal point. Additionally, the voter score includes an asteriskor the like if the voter has voted in at least one primary or specialelection in the last four years.

In other embodiments, a voter score may be attached to a cluster ofvoters. In certain preferred embodiments, the voter score for a clusterof voters is simply the average of the voter scores of everyone in thecluster; this weights all voters equally. For example, a cluster mayhave two voters: a Democrat who voted three times out of sixopportunities to vote in the last four years (with an individual voterscore of 5.0) and an non-affiliated (colloquially, independent) whovoted three times but with only three opportunities to vote in the lastfour years (with an individual voter score of 10.0). The preferredembodiment would add 5.0 to 10.0 and divide by two to average them to a7.5. Alternate embodiments may add up all the times every voter in thecluster voted and divide this value by all the opportunities every voterhad to vote. Thus, in the prior example, 6 votes divided by 9opportunities results in a 6.7 voter score for the cluster.

Voter Score Accounting for Ineligibility to Vote in Primaries andSpecial Elections

Another novel aspect is the recognition that there is often noopportunity to vote in Primaries and Special Elections. This providesfor a more accurate voter score, but is another embodiment in-and-ofitself.

The current solutions in the industry treat such non-opportunities asnegative participation. The current embodiment treats a non-opportunityto vote as a neutral or N/A for “not applicable.” N/A votes may beomitted from voter score calculations.

Occasions where current industry solutions claim negative participationinclude, but are not limited to: No Primary in the voter's politicalparty; no special election in the voter's districts (i.e. House, StateSenate, etc.); the voter has registered unaffiliated with any politicalparty (colloquially, registered as an independent) and thus cannot votein any primary election.

There are over 16,000 precincts and five official “primary” parties inNew York State alone.

In order to distinguish between negative participation (non-voting)versus N/A (no voting opportunity), various embodiments analyze everyvoter of the party within each precinct using proprietary softwarealgorithms, which are discussed in the following. The number of votes ina precinct for everyone registered in a particular political party iscalculated. If two or more votes were cast, then there was a primary inthat precinct. Multiple votes are required due to errors in the Board ofElection (BOE) data, and because there exist ambiguities in some BOEdata formats (for instance, there may be no information on changes inparty registration or residence, and hence ambiguity as to what party avoter was actually affiliated with when the vote was cast). The systemthen automatically updates the voter history by party and precinct,changing “NO” votes to “N/A” votes where appropriate.

An alternate embodiment requires more than two votes. Another alternateembodiment sets the minimum number of votes based on the total number ofparty members in that precinct. Another alternate embodiment increasesthe minimum number of votes the further back the election was, takinginto account that “noise” (errors) grows over time as more people havemoved or changed party affiliation.

An alternate embodiment presents all districts (House, State Senate,State Assembly, City Council, etc.) on screen and allows anadministrator to manually check off which districts had a primary inthat party or a special election. The administrator then clicks Save andthe system automatically updates the voter history by party andprecinct, changing “NO” votes to “N/A” votes where appropriate.

Adjusting the voter history itself to include N/A rather than “NO” votesis a new aspect separate from calculating the voter score. This aspectallows for more accurate measurement of voter participation and sooffers an improvement over existing systems.

Once these adjustments are made to the voter history, a more accuratevoter score can be calculated.

Voter Score Accounting for Ineligibility to Vote Due to Age

Another novel aspect is the recognition that young voters are noteligible to vote at all in past elections before they turn 18 years ofage. This provides for a more accurate voter score, but is an embodimentin-and-of itself.

The current solutions in the industry treat such opportunities asnegative participation, i.e., as “NO” votes. Various embodiments insteadtreat a non-opportunity to vote as a neutral or N/A vote.

In order to distinguish between negative participation (non-voting)versus N/A (no voting opportunity), various embodiments analyze eachvoter's birth date (as provided by BOE data) and compares it to thedates that the general, primary or special election was held (as eitherprovided by BOE data, as hard-coded into the algorithm, or as providedby another source, such as an administrator or another database). Thesystem automatically updates the voter history, changing “NO” votes to“N/A” votes where the voter's 18th birthday comes after the electiondate.

Adjusting the voter history to include N/A votes is an embodimentseparate from the voter score. This embodiment allows for more accuratemeasurement of voter participation and is an improvement on existingsystems.

Once these adjustments are made to the voter history, a more accuratevoter score can be calculated.

Voter Score Accounting for Ineligibility to Vote Due to RecentRegistration to Vote

Certain embodiments of the voter score does not excuse those whorecently registered to vote, but an alternate embodiment geared towardstargeting likely voters might. This provides for a more useful voterscore, but is also embodiment in-and-of itself.

The current solution in the industry is to treat such opportunities asnegative participation. An alternate embodiment treats thisnon-opportunity to vote as a neutral or N/A vote.

In order to distinguish between negative participation (non-voting)versus N/A (no voting opportunity) the invention analyzes every voter'sregistration date (as provided by the BOE data) and compares it to thedates that the general, primary or special election was held (as eitherprovided by BOE data, as hard-coded into the algorithm or as provided byanother source, such as an administrator of the system or anotherdatabase). The system automatically updates the voter history, changing“NO” votes to “N/A” votes where the voter's registration date is laterthan the election date.

Adjusting the voter history to include N/A votes is an embodimentseparate from voter score. This invention allows for more usefultargeting of likely voters and is an improvement on existing systems.

Once these adjustments are made to the voter history, a more usefulvoter score can be calculated.

It should be noted that the concept of a voter score is significantlydiminished without the inclusion of N/A votes. Consider, for example, aprecinct that has had three general elections in the past four years,with a Democratic primary last year and a Republican primary two yearsago. Without N/A's, the best a voter could do in that precinct is an8.0, because he wouldn't have been able to vote in the other party'sprimary. Given that the voter has voted in all elections he or shepossibly could, it makes little sense to assign an 8.0 (out of apossible 10.0) to a perfect voter.

Voter Score Solution to Educating and Motivating Americans to Vote

Voter history has traditionally been used by campaigns and organizationsto target likely voters. For instance, a candidate running in theDemocratic primary would want to generate a list of voters thatparticipated in recent primaries. The overall invention provides voterhistory information to the general public as one tool to motivatethemselves and their friends and family to get out to vote.

In one embodiment, the voter score is calculated against a slidingfour-year window of voter activity that captures the American electioncycle. Thus, the voter score is a “live number” similar to how aconsumer credit rating is live in that it adjusts based on the activityof the voter over time, “forgiving” past failures to vote in favor ofmore recent activity. This makes it easier to raise your score, thushelping to encourage more voting. Also, a poor voter with a low score isencouraged to vote with the knowledge that he can raise his score to aperfect score (i.e., a 10.0) over time.

The sliding four-year time frame may be of minimal value when targetinglikely voters, but may be important to educating and motivatingAmericans to vote.

Alternate embodiments that are geared towards targeting likely voterscould use a different time frame, or cover all votes ever recorded.

In one embodiment, all elections are weighted equally. This inherentlysends a political message that the Presidential vote is no moreimportant than any other. For example, many New York City youth areregistered to vote in the Midwest or Florida where they grew up. Theydon't switch their registration to New York because they erroneouslybelieve that voting for President in a swing state is more importantthan ever voting for NYC mayor and city council, and NYS governor andlegislature.

Weighting all elections equally is often inappropriate when targetinglikely voters but may be important to educating and motivating Americansto vote.

Alternate embodiments that are geared towards targeting likely voterscould vary the weighting of elections, for instance giving primariestwice the weight as general elections, or giving the correspondingelection from four years ago a greater weight.

In one embodiment, an asterisk or other identifiable mark is appended ifthe voter has participated in at least one primary in the last fouryears. This draws attention to the importance of primary voting,something many youth voters are not eligible to do due to registeringwithout party affiliation (as “independents”).

Marking primary voters with an asterisk or the like may be of minimalvalue when targeting likely voters but may be important to educating andmotivating Americans to vote.

Alternate embodiments that are geared towards targeting likely voterscould use multiple asterisks or the like, with each mark indicating aprimary vote (to capture what is commonly called in the industry “singleprimes”, “double primes” and “triple primes”). Another alternateembodiment could keep the single asterisk but change the number of yearsback that are checked.

All of the alternate embodiments listed above could also be applied tothe voter score for the purposes of educating and motivating theAmerican public to vote, if experience shows that these alternateembodiments are more effective, or if clients specifically request them.

Voter Score Clustering

A voter score can be assigned to a list or clustering of voters. Theseclusters may be arranged by demographic, geography, registration, partyaffiliation or other such types of grouping or excluding information.

In one embodiment, a voter score is assigned to a personal GOTV drivelist by averaging the voter scores of the people on the list. In variousembodiments, a voter score may be based upon the average score of allindividuals within a particular class or group. For example, in oneembodiment, a voter score is assigned to all female voters over the ageof 65 to aid in targeting likely voters. In another embodiment, voterscores are created for households.

Voter Scorecard

The voter scorecard is a new method of detailing recent voter history ina way that is easy to understand. A voter scorecard may be applied to asingle voter, an embodiment of which is shown in FIG. 1.

In one embodiment, the voter scorecard takes into account that often avoter is ineligible to vote in a primary or special election. In oneembodiment, the voter scorecard takes into account that young voters areineligible to vote in any election before they turn 18 years of age.These calculations are outlined above, and their respective presentationin the voter scorecard is to display an “N/A” vote rather than a “NO”vote.

The voter scorecard may provide all the details needed to explain to auser how they got their summary voter score.

The voter scorecard may be an important aspect of the invention'soverall solution to educating and motivating Americans to vote.

The voter scorecard is an improvement over voter history displays inexisting field operations tools that use obscure codes such as “GE05”for general election in 2005 or applying the following numbers to eachyear: 1=Primary; 2=General; 3=Primary+General; 4=Special;5=Primary+Special; 6=General+Special; and 7=Primary+General+Special.

In one embodiment, the voter scorecard may be used as a piece within ane-mail voter footer, discussed below.

In one embodiment, the voter scorecard is provided to the general publicas an aspect of the personal GOTV drive subsystem, discussed below.

The voter scorecard may include the following pieces:

1. The voter's name, political party, gender, age and address. In thefield operations subsystem this may be the full address, while in thepersonal GOTV drive subsystem this may be a partial address to protectpersonal privacy.

2. A list of elections in the past four years that includes the type ofelection (i.e. general), the date of the election, the offices voted on(i.e. mayor) and a Yes, No or N/A vote. This display is customized basedon precinct to take into account local elections that are held ondifferent dates and for different offices. Listing the offices that arevoted on educates the general public.

3. Color coding may be used for easy visualization, with “Yes” votesmarked green, “N/A” votes marked yellow, and “No” votes marked red.

4. An intermediate summary may be provided that includes the voter scoreand whether the individual votes in federal, state, local and primaryelections, with the same color-coded “Yes”, “No” and “N/A” values.

In one embodiment, the voter scorecard is displayed electronically,either on a website or in an e-mail. In an alternate embodiment, thevoter scorecard is displayed on printed paper or provided verbally tothe general public.

Post-Election Voter History

Various embodiments allow for post-election conversion analysis. Voterhistory data is updated after an election once the BOE has compiled andpublished it. This allows for post-mortem analysis of the effectivenessof a user's personal GOTV drive and verification of whether pledges werefulfilled. The user's knowledge that they will be held accountable afterthe election improves their participation and is key to educating andmobilizing Americans to vote.

This also allows for post-mortem analysis of the effectiveness of acampaign or an organization's staff and volunteers. For instance, a shopsteward for a labor union is responsible for getting his members to thepolls. Various embodiments allow measurement of his results for thefirst time. They also allow for post-mortem analysis of theeffectiveness of various techniques, for instance measuring the relativeeffectiveness in motivating voters who received in-person door knocksfrom the candidate versus those who did not. For each class of people, acorresponding voter score can be generated, which assists in thepost-mortem. For example, the average voter score of people who receivedin-person knocks cab be compared against the average voter score ofthose who did not.

This is new for existing field operations and GOTV tools and independentof the voter score, particularly with regards to the fact that earlierpledges to vote can be verified after the election, and that voter scorecan be assigned rather that simply counting the number of people whoactually voted.

In one embodiment, a voter score can be assigned to these clusters togive a quick summary of results, allowing for an easy analysis andcomparison. There are two possible methods for assigning a voter scoreto a cluster of voters. The preferred embodiment is to average the voterscore of everyone on the list. This weights all voters equally. Take asexample a cluster consisting of two voters: a Democrat who voted threetimes out of six opportunities to vote in the last four years (with anindividual voter score of 5.0) and an non-affiliated (colloquially,independent) who voted three times but with only three opportunities tovote in the last four years (with an individual voter score of 10.0).The preferred embodiment would add 5.0 to 10.0 and divide by two toaverage them to a 7.5. An alternate embodiment would add up all timesevery voter in the cluster voted and divide by all the opportunitiesevery voter had to vote. Thus, in the prior example, 6 votes divided by9 opportunities results in a 6.7 voter score for the cluster.

Household Visualization

In the current embodiment another novel application of the invention isin improving householding for field operations systems.

Existing field operations systems can cross-reference voters within ahousehold in order to influence the necessary voter. The usefulness ofhouseholding can be seen in this example: Husband James is the targetedDemocrat who votes in primaries. Wife Mary is registered in the WorkingFamilies party and is unable to vote in the Democratic primary. WifeMary is a member of the Labor Union that provided an endorsement to acandidate Bill. Various embodiments provide improvements to identifythat Mary (the “receptor”) is the target to be communicated with toinfluence James (the “actor”) to vote for Bill. Qualities of James andMary are combined to identify their household. These embodiments improvethis process by providing an easy-to-absorb visual display of thehousehold, as shown in FIGS. 2-3.

Any suitable database query, in combination with an appropriate sortingalgorithm, may be employed to identify persons of influence. Forexample, the query may comprise finding all individuals between the agesof 55 and 75 that are registered Democrats and who have voted in thelast two primaries. The results may be sorted by any manner, such as bythe total number of votes the individual has cast, the total number ofprimaries the person voted in, the voter score, etc. Of course, thepossible search and sort criteria are numerous, and are not limited tojust this simple example.

The visual display may include one or more of the following pieces:

1. Additional people in a household after the first member are indented.

2. Color and font coding is used; for example, targeted voters (asdefined by the campaign) may be in green with a bold font, remainingnon-targeted voters may be in yellow with a normal font, and non-voters(for instance, ineligible to vote in a primary) maybe in red withitalics.

3. The household is ordered with targeted voters first, non-targetedvoters second, and non-voters last. A targeted voter may be identifiedby criteria set, for example, by the campaign, as earlier indicated.However, voter history is different than voter score. Using voterhistory data, targeting could be based, for example, on any Democratthat voted in the previous years primary. Thus, a target could havevoted only that one time and have a voter score of 2.0, whereas anon-target voter (in this example, a Democrat) could have voted in everyelection except that one and have a voter score of 8.0. The letter maystill be addressed to the target voter even though there is anotherDemocrat in the household that votes on (unweighted) average more often.Also note that other factors may be used for targeting besides voterhistory. A female candidate may want to include more women in hertargeting, and so in this example a female Democrat with a 5.0 voterscore could be marked as a target, while her husband with a 7.5 voterscore may not be marked as a target.

4. The household has a secondary sort order by voter score.

5. Each individual has their voter score next to their name.

6. Clicking on an individual's name brings up their info, includingtheir full voter scorecard.

The visual display allows professionals conducting field operations toquickly understand who is in a household and their relative importance,and is an improvement over existing systems. An example screen shot ofsuch a display is shown in FIG. 25. As shown in the figure, by clickingupon various button present in the display, the field operations staffmay view the underlying data in differing formats; FIG. 25 depicts the“Full Households” format.

In the current embodiment, staff and volunteers can correct BOE data tochange apartment numbers of voters, or list them as moved or deceased. Ascreen presented by the system which permits such changes is shown inFIG. 26. Changing addresses may not be allowed because a voter can onlyvote at her registered address. The allowed corrections are taken intoaccount when generating household visualizations. It may be noted thatthe system itself may assign voters without apartment numbers tohouseholds as part of the data cleaning process. For example, inbuildings with seven or more voters, any voter without an apartmentnumber may be assigned to an apartment in which someone with the samelast name lives. Of course, additional rules may also be applied, and anexhaustive list of such rules is beyond the scope of this disclosure.However, it should simply be noted that households can be cleaned up aspart of the household visualization process.

Because of privacy issues, in preferred embodiments the personal GOTVdrive subsystem does not present household visualizations. It would bean invasion of privacy to allow strangers to see who a particular voterlives with.

Household Mailing Labels

Existing field operation systems print mailing labels, with one labelper household to save on postage costs. It is standard to address thelabel to the household, for instance “The Addams Family” or “Mr. and Ms.Smith”. Various embodiments improve this process by addressing mailinglabels to the best individual(s) in the household. An example set ofmailing labels is shown in FIG. 34.

Preferred embodiments intelligently and automatically place the bestname on the mailing label, rather than address it generally to ahousehold or to “Mr. and Mrs.” Or the like. In the current embodiment,the top-ranked voter is chosen, as outlined above (sorted by targetvoter/non-target voter/non-voter and then by voter score). An alternateembodiment would be to include all targeted voters on the label, inorder of voter score. Another alternate embodiment would be to includeboth the top-ranked voter (the “actor”) and the “receptor” individual onthe label.

Appropriate selection of individuals is important for two reasons. Mailaddressed to a specific individual is more likely to be opened (byanyone in the household) than when addressed to the household, becauseit looks less like junk mail and because group responsibility isnobody's responsibility. In addition, having a letter opened by anon-target voter and especially a non-voter has no impact and is a wasteof campaign resources.

E-Mail Voter Footer

A novel aspect of the invention is the inclusion of a detailed e-mailvoter footer on every e-mail sent by the system, an embodiment of whichis shown in FIG. 4.

The field operations subsystem may allow for e-mail blasts with thesefooters. The personal GOTV drive subsystem may allow users to sende-mails to their friends and family on their list, with the footersincluded therein as well.

Currently no such system in any capacity exists outside of theinvention. Other systems will link e-mails to voter records but only forinternal purposes, such as sending a targeted e-mail blast. Voterhistory, voter record, and information derived from these sources arenever shared with the general public.

To make certain aspects of the e-mail voter footer work, a link mayfirst be established as outlined below in e-mail linking to voter score,voter scorecard, full voter record and additional information about thevoter.

In certain embodiments of the invention, the e-mail voter footer maycontain some or all of the following information specific to the voterreceiving the e-mail, and in the case of the personal GOTV drivesubsystem, the user who is sending the e-mail:

1. The name of the individual sending and receiving the e-mail.

2. Information on the organization hosting the invention, including theorganization's name, their slogan, and a link to their website.

3. The voter score and a link to the voter scorecard of the e-mailrecipient. The link helps drive traffic to the embodiment system andhelps encourage the recipient to join herself.

4. In the case of the personal GOTV drive subsystem, the voter score anda link to the voter scorecard of the e-mail sender.

5. The list of upcoming election dates that the e-mail recipient iseligible to vote in, taking into account their individual partyaffiliation and districts (House, State Senate, etc.).

6. Political party and partial address of where the e-mail recipient isregistered to vote. Many voters don't remember or aren't aware of theirparty registration. Only the street or city is listed to protectpersonal privacy, but this is still local enough to remind the e-mailrecipient if she has forgotten to update her registration after a recentmove.

7. The e-mail recipient's pollsite (where to vote) including theaddress, the name (i.e. public school 321) and a link to a map (forinstance, an external site like MapQuest).

8. In the case of the personal GOTV drive subsystem, the e-mail sender'spersonal endorsement of a candidate, including the name, election race(i.e. mayor), a link to the candidate's website, whether the endorsementis for the primary or general election, and a personal endorsementreason written by the sender. The sender is allowed to endorse any onesingle candidate, including the opponents of the candidates that theorganization is endorsing. This provides all users incentive to activelysend e-mails. At the same time this still provides a net benefit to theorganization: since the user only has one endorsement, the recipient ismore likely to vote as the organization hopes in the other races; therecipient is more likely to show up to the polls if a friend has a goodreason for the opposing endorsement, and thus more likely to be presentto have the opportunity to vote in the other races; and finally therecipient is still exposed to the organization's endorsement and mightbe persuaded to support when otherwise he wouldn't have a reason to.This piece is important to user participation and proper balance betweenthe two subsystems. It is counterintuitive at first, and does not existoutside the system.

9. The organization's endorsements of all candidates that the e-mailrecipient is eligible to vote for, personalized by party affiliation (inthe case of a primary election) and districts. These endorsementsinclude the name of the candidate, election race, a link to thecandidate's website, whether the endorsement is for the primary orgeneral election, and an endorsement reason written by the organization.The endorsement reason can be personalized based on the motivatingissues identified with that voter. For instance, if the organization isa gay rights group, it might have identified in the system that a votercares about AIDS research funding, so that voter would receiveendorsement reasons on why the candidates are good with that. Anothervoter might care about same-sex marriage, so the endorsement reasonswould focus on that. Voters who have not been ID'ed might receive moregeneric reasons.

10. In cases where the e-mail recipient is not a registered voter, alink is included to the appropriate BOE website where they can register.

In an alternate embodiment, the e-mail voter footer can includeinformation from both the field operations and personal GOTV drivesubsystems, such as whether the recipient has pledged to vote, answereda survey or poll, or sent an online petition to the recipient's electedrepresentatives.

In the current embodiment, the personal GOTV drive subsystem providesthe option for the user to send to the e-mail recipient his full voterscorecard without having to click on a link.

E-mail Linking to Voter Score, Voter Scorecard, Full Voter Record andAdditional Information about the Voter

Various embodiments provide a system that links users' e-mail addressesto their voter score, their voter scorecard, their full voter record,and any additional information in the system about the individualcollected from additional sources (for instance, their phone numbers ortheir interest in motivating issues). The link to voter score andscorecard is an improvement over existing field operations systems. Thefull link is entirely new to personal GOTV drive systems.

Voter email addresses may be obtained by a number of paths including,but not limited to: importation of other databases such as Sierra ClubMailing List, Local Plumbers Union Member Rolls, The State DemocraticParty Database, AARP Database, etc.; participants entering their owne-mails or those of their friends and family while using an embodimentpersonal GOTV drive subsystem; users of an embodiment field operationsapplication entering e-mails from political petitions or eventattendance sheets.

In an embodiment of the field operations subsystem, users are provided a“Fuzzy Logic” search on names and addresses that returns close butimperfect matches. A screen shot depicting such a fuzzy search is shownin FIG. 32. In one embodiment, the fuzzy logic will look for everyonewith the same first and last name, everyone with the same last name thatlives on that street, and everyone with the same first and last initialsthat lives in that building. This both speeds the matching process andincreases the number of matches. This is an improvement over existingfield operation tools.

In one embodiment, the e-mail link allows for automatic demographic,geographic and political analysis of an organization's e-mail list(“members”) or a user's voter list of friends and family. This analysisautomatically provides: 1) the number of members who are voters andprimary voters; 2) the number of members who live in various geographicareas (such as counties or in NYC) and districts (such as House or StateSenate), cross-referenced by political party affiliation; 3) thepercentage of members in various demographic groups, such as gender orage; and 4) the percentage of members who have voted in past elections(for instance, the percent that voted for president in 2004). An exampleanalysis is shown in FIGS. 19-20.

In certain embodiments of the personal GOTV drive application, users arerequired to confirm hidden personal data to prevent intentional falselinks. This is shown, for example, in FIG. 13. FIG. 13 shows a webpagepresented by the system in response to a member searching for a friendor family. By clicking on a link presented in response to the search,the system presents to the member a webpage about a voter which, byclicking upon the appropriate button, permits the member classify thevoter as a friend, or as the member himself. In the later case, themember must provide certain additional identifying information known tothe system from, for example, the BOE data but not generally known tothe public. Once properly identified, the information related to thevoter record is linked to the member's account.

Personal GOTV Drive Subsystem

The personal GOTV drive subsystem allows for the general public toaccess voter information to empower them to get their friends and familyto vote, and to influence their vote.

The personal GOTV drive subsystem may be configured by an organization,which may identify issues of importance, such as pending or currentlegislation, elections and officials, and the like. These issues may beimplicitly or explicitly propagated throughout the personal GOTV drivesubsystem so that members joining the system are also made aware ofthese issues, can easily comment on these issues with their friends andfamily, can forward e-mails and newsletters distributed by theorganization to their friends and families, and the like.

As an initial step, and as shown in FIG. 6, the personal GOTV drivesubsystem may include a login page that permits the system to identify auser and subsequently grant that user access to the variousfunctionalities of the system. A standard username and passwordcombination may be employed for this purpose. If the user has notregistered with the system as a member, then a link may be provided thatpermits the user to register and so provide the system with contact andpersonal information, which may be made available to the organization.Such a registration screen is shown in FIG. 7. As shown in FIG. 7, theuser may provide their name, e-mail address and desired user name. Theuser also has the option of immediately linking to their voter records,or to skip this process and join as a non-registered user. As discussedelsewhere, to link to a voter record, the user must provide certainpieces of private information that are not generally known to thepublic, but which are known by the system, such as a middle initial,month and year of birth, and building number. If the user is able tomatch this information, then the information from the related voterrecord may be populated into the user account information or otherwiselinked to the user. As shown in FIG. 8, the system may permit a newmember to edit their account information (such as physical address,e-mail address, password and the like). The user may also indicate, byclicking on the appropriate tab and entering information into theresultant webpage, their views on various issues, such as thoseidentified by the organization. Such a webpage is shown in FIG. 9, whichshows that the user may indicate a candidate that he or she endorses,and which, for example, may then be incorporated into the e-mail footerwhen the user employs the e-mailing utilities of the system.

One characteristic of the personal GOTV drive subsystem is that it usesand combines a voter list of friends and family along with the e-mailvoter footer. It also incorporates pledges to vote and e-mail blastforwarding. Finally, it handles personal privacy issues surroundingmaking public record voter data available to the general public.

In various embodiments, the personal GOTV drive subsystem interacts withthe field operations subsystem via a subsystem interface. This allowsthe general public to participate in a field operations subsystemwithout violating the personal privacy between the user and the campaignor organization. It also allows this without compromising confidentialcampaign information in the field operations subsystem.

In certain embodiments, the general public can view reports that showhow many users have pledged to vote, as well as how many individuals ontheir voter list of friends and family have pledged. FIGS. 21-23 presentan example screen shot of such a pledge report. The system also allowsfor goals to be set and to compare results to those goals.

In the current embodiment, the general public can use the system to sende-mails to anyone on any topic, which automatically includes the e-mailvoter footer.

Voter List of Friends and Family

Embodiment personal GOTV drive applications allow a user to build andmaintain a list of friends and family for the purpose of getting them tovote, and to influence who they vote for. Various preferred embodimentshave a general principle around the Friends and Family list: the memberwho is building the list is not registering his friends (or family) withthe organization. He or she does not have their permission (or at leastthe organization has no way of confirming such permission). Thus, theorganization is not allowed to know anything about these friends orfamily. In addition, the organization cannot contact or e-mail thefriends or family directly. All communication passes through the member,who can forward it along if he or she chooses. Thus, the forwardede-mail comes from the member, even though it is generated and sent viathe organization's system.

As shown in FIG. 10, the user is able to search by first and last name,and by county, to find voter records of their friends and family. Theuser is presented a list of possible matches, with the gender, age,political party, voter score, and partial address given to enable theuser to ascertain who their friend or family member is amongst a list ofvoters with the same name.

The user can then click a check box to mark the voter as a “friend,” aspreviously indicated with reference to FIG. 13. The voter will thenappear in the user's voter list of friends and family. FIG. 12 depicts alist of friends and family presented by the system, as generated by amember. If the friend or family member is not a registered voter, theuser has the ability to create a “non-voter record” that then alsoappears in their voter list, as shown in FIG. 11.

The user can also assign e-mail addresses to those on their voter list,as shown in FIG. 13. The user can send emails through the system to one,all, or selected friends and family on their list, as shown in FIG. 17,such as by clicking on a send e-mail button, as shown in FIG. 12. Thesee-mails are tracked by the system so the user can see the last e-mailsent, all e-mails sent, and the date and subject line of all e-mails.

The user is also able to enter information, as shown in FIG. 14, andtrack his friends and family in the same manner as the field operationssubsystem, such as whether they have pledged to vote, what issues theycare about, etc. This information is only visible to the particular userwho entered it. With specific reference to FIG. 14, the member may enterinformation about a friend or family voter by clicking, for example, onboxes or the like. These boxes and attendant descriptive text may be setup, for example, by the organization as issues of importance asidentified by that organization. As a convenience for the member as auser of the system, and as shown in FIGS. 13-16, when a member isbrowsing the database for information about another voter, friend orfamily, tabs may be presented that permit the member to quickly navigatebetween various screens. For example, by clicking on a “Friend's E-Mail”tab, the member may be taken to a screen such as that shown in FIG. 13,and enter the friends e-mail address therein. The system may present thecontact history of the member with that friend, such as by listing thesubject lines of all emails sent to the friend. FIG. 14 shows a screenthat is present when the “Friend's Profile” tab is clicked. FIG. 16shows a screen that is depicted when the “Voter History” tab is clicked.As shown in FIG. 16, the screen presented may include the results of anembodiment voter history analysis of the friend or family member, and anembodiment voter score. FIG. 15 shows a screen that may be presentedwhen a “Friend's Endorsement” tab is clicked. As will be discussedlater, only mutual friends may see their respective endorsementsinformation due to issues of privacy.

If a friend subsequently registers with the system and entersinformation about himself, this information will override what the userentered about the individual. In certain embodiments, the changes ininformation is reflected only as to what the organization sees; themember may continue to see the information that the member input aboutthat friend. How the system differentiates between information enteredby a member about, for example, a friend, and the information that suchfriend enters about themselves is covered in more detail later.

In preferred embodiments, the user's voter list of friends and family iskept private from other users, and from the sponsoring organization.However, aggregate summary information, such as the total number ofpeople on the list or the number of e-mails sent, may be made availableto the sponsoring Organization. An example aggregate summary list isshown in FIG. 40.

Pledges to Vote

Various embodiment personal GOTV drive applications allow a user topledge to vote, both for an election (i.e. special, primary, or general)and for endorsed candidates. These embodiments may also allow users tomark their friends and family as having pledged to vote, which is animprovement over existing GOTV systems.

Making a pledge increases the likelihood of the individual going to voteon election day. Collecting pledges helps remind friends and family tovote.

Some embodiments automatically know which local candidates an individualcan vote for, for example by cross-referencing BOE-supplied data andinternal databases. This is an improvement over existing GOTV tools.

Certain embodiments display the total number of pledges to vote, bothfor elections and for endorsed candidates, as shown in FIGS. 21-23. Thisencourages users of the system to pledge themselves and collect pledges.This is an improvement over existing GOTV tools.

Pledging to vote is an improvement to existing field operations systems,which do not allow for individuals external from the campaign to haveaccess to the system.

Personal Privacy with the Personal GOTV Drive Subsystem

The personal GOTV drive subsystem allows the general public to searchfor voters and build a list of friends and family without violatingprivacy. It also allows users to link to their own voter record byproviding verification information, again without violating privacy.

In one embodiment, the system blocks the general public from:

1. Seeing apartment numbers and house numbers of voters. In someregions, the street name may also be blocked and only the citydisplayed. For instance, if a voter lives at “350 Fifth Ave, Apt #10D,New York, N.Y.” the personal GOTV drive subsystem will only display“Fifth Ave, New York, N.Y.”.

2. Seeing who lives with an individual.

3. Seeing everyone who lives in a particular building.

4. Seeing birthdates. An age is displayed that is only updated on thefirst of every month.

5. Seeing middle initials.

6. Users have an enhanced privacy option that blocks both street andpollsite location for additional protection.

7. A configuration option exists to allow users to see or hide the factthat their friends and family are also users of the system, and thusmembers of the organization.

Various embodiments provide a technique that allows users to link totheir voter record, while at the same time not violating the aboveprivacy rules. Because some information that the general public userenters about himself is visible to other users and to the sponsoringorganization, it is important to prevent users from “masquerading” assomeone else. To make the link, the user is required to provide hismiddle initial, house number, and month and year of birth, as shown andpreviously discussed with reference to FIG. 13. If the information isincorrect, the user is not told which parts are wrong. This prevents thelinking mechanism from being used to ascertain private information. Suchverification techniques may also be performed during registration of auser, as shown in FIG. 7.

It is useful to think of this verification as using the voter dataitself as a “password” for the general public to safely enter into thefield operations system.

In an alternate embodiment, a different combination of private data canbe used, for instance using the day and month of birth.

In the current embodiment, certain searches are prevented to protectprivacy, for instance the general public is not allowed to search byaddress.

E-Mail Blast Forwarding

It is common for field operations systems to include a link allowing therecipient to forward the organization's e-mail blasts to their friendsand family. E-mail blasts are announcements, action alerts, invites,etc. sent by the organization to their e-mail list of members. Anexample e-mail blast generator screen is shown in FIG. 38.

Various embodiments provide improvements over existing mail forwardingsystems in two ways. One is that the forward list is made permanent, sothe user doesn't have to reenter e-mails every time, increasing thelikelihood of participation. In addition, the forwarded e-mailautomatically substitutes the e-mail voter footer from what the userreceived to instead use one customized to the new recipient. The e-mailblast screen may also include additional header and footer informationto provide for a general “look and feel” of the message, such as settingbackground colors or patterns, inserted images and the like.

In one embodiment, the user can forward an e-mail blast to one, all, orselected individuals on her voter list of friends and family, as shownin FIG. 18. In another embodiment, the user can add her own comments tothe top of the e-mail, so for instance if the e-mail blast is an inviteto a fundraiser, the user can add the she will be attending andpersonally encourage her friends to come.

As shown in FIG. 24, in some embodiments the user can also “forward”prewritten e-mails defined by the organization, such as a request topledge to vote, a reminder to vote, a “who we are” analysis ofmembership, or the recipient's full voter scorecard.

The e-mail blast forwarding may also include a link at the bottom toblock e-mails sent from that particular user. For example, such a linkis shown in the e-mail footer shown in FIG. 4. This still allows therecipient to receive forwarded e-mails from other users in the system,or if the recipient is also a member of the organization, to stillreceive the e-mail blasts.

In one embodiment, this is achieved by tracking the voter ID of thesender and the e-mail of the recipient. This prevents the sender fromgetting around a block by change his own e-mail address. In oneembodiment, the system assigns a unique ID to every voter ID and e-mailcombination, includes it on the block link and tracks this in thedatabase. This helps prevent a malicious hacker from blocking e-mails ofother users.

Voter Support Visualization

Voter support visualization allows staff and volunteers conducting fieldoperations to quickly understand support for a candidate or an issue byclusters of voters, and is an improvement over existing systems. Thecluster could be but is not limited to a district, a precinct, everyonethat the campaign has contacted, or everyone on the campaign's e-maillist. An example display is shown in FIG. 5.

This display also allows for the general public conducting a personalGOTV drive to quickly understand support for a candidate or an issue byclusters of voters, and is a new invention for this purpose. The clustercould be but is not limited to the membership of the organization or theuser's voter list of friends and family.

In various embodiments, the display of voter support visualization mayinclude the following pieces:

1. Color coding is used, with strong support in green, lean support andundecided in yellow, and lean oppose and strong oppose in red. Thebuild-in imbalance with lean support assigned to yellow rather thangreen is done for a couple of reasons. In field operations, leansupports and those who are undecided are both groups that the campaignattempts to persuade, hence yellow to indicate “caution,” while it isconsidered a waste of resources to attempt to persuade a voter at anylevel of opposition, hence red to indicate “stop.” Also, when lobbyingfor an issue, only strong supports will take action to help, hence greento indicate “go,” while both lean oppose and strong oppose need to beovercome, hence red to indicate “stop.” Finally, “hate trumps hope” ingeneral with politics, and this imbalance captures that reality.

2. A title bar of the five levels of support is presented at the top ofthe visualization. This includes a 1 through 5 numeric rating assignedto five levels of support, as is standard in field operations. The titlebar is color coded along with the results below. The titles arepresented in proportion of 20% each so the viewer can immediately seehow the actual results compare to balanced results. The title bar doesnot explicitly explain how to interpret the results below, but it isimplicitly grasped by the viewer after a moment or two.

3. The results are scaled proportionately to their percentage, with theactual percentage presented inside the bar. The system hides thepercentage sign when the result is under 5% to keep this spacingproportional. At 0% and 1%, 0 and 1 are displayed respectively, whichdoes distort the results slightly. This is done because in avisualization, absorbing information immediately is more important thanminor inaccuracies. An alternate embodiment could use a smaller font ornot display the 0 or 1 at all.

4. White slivers are placed between each level of support so adjacentyellows and reds can be distinguished. Again this distorts the resultsslightly and is done because absorbing information immediately is moreimportant than minor inaccuracies. An alternate embodiment could usedifferent shades of yellow and red to avoid the white sliversaltogether.

Subsystem Interface

A third aspect of the invention is the subsystem interface that allowsboth the field operations and personal GOTV drive subsystems to coexisttogether.

Features of embodiment subsystem interfaces are:

1. Keeping the general public's voter list of friends and family privateso the sponsoring campaign or organization cannot access these lists.

2. Allowing the sponsoring organization to promote a general public userto volunteer status, granting access to the field operation subsystem.The system also allows for demotions. A screen depicting this internalmanagement tool is shown in FIG. 27. As shown in FIG. 27, the role ofthe user can be set. A member has no access to confidentialorganizational records. A volunteer can access such confidentialrecords. A field organizer can create new volunteers and fieldorganizers and in some embodiments print mailing labels and export datato a spreadsheet. A field director can send e-mail blasts and create newfield directors. An administrator can backup, restore or optimizedatabases among other system functions. Additionally, the confidentialinformation that a volunteer can view may be restricted, for example, byprecinct, as indicated by the “Assigned Precincts” field.

3. Providing a configuration option that allows the organization to viewinformation that general public users enter about themselves (not theirfriends) and to disallow the organization from changing suchinformation.

4. Allowing for parallel but independent data tracking, so generalpublic users can enter information about friends that is hidden from andcan contradict information entered by other general public users or bythe sponsoring organization, and vice versa. For example, as shown inFIGS. 28-29, field operations personnel may indicate information about avoter which the voter may not be able to see. For example, in FIG. 28the field operations personnel may enter political profile information,while in FIG. 29 they may enter contact history information and asummary of the results thereof. As shown in FIGS. 30-31, which areanalogous to FIGS. 13-14, organization personnel may add a voter to theorganization's voter list, and may edit the political profile of a voterso added.

Besides hiding personal aspects of the public voter records from thegeneral public, various embodiments also hide certain informationentered by general public users from the field operations staff andvolunteers. In general, information entered by the general public aboutthemselves is visible to staff and volunteers, while information enteredby the general public about their friends and family is hidden.

In some embodiments, as shown in FIG. 14, the general public canidentify and track information about their friends and family. Thisallows the public to better motivate their friends and family to vote,and to better influence who they vote for. For instance, a user might beable to mark some friends as caring about same-sex marriage while otherscare about legalizing marijuana. If the user wants to forward anannouncement about the Federal Marriage Amendment, he could easilyfilter his list to only send to the friends and family who care aboutthat issue (rather than sending to all and annoying those that don'tcare, or having to select individually from memory each time).

This information about the friends and family is kept private from bothother users, and from the sponsoring organization's field operationsteam. In one embodiment, this is achieved by including a “Friend ID”field in the database tables. If set to a predefined value, such as zeroor blank, then this is public information. If set to a voter ID value,then only that voter has access to this information.

As a general matter, and as known in the field of relational databaseprogramming, the system may include a database that holds a plurality ofrecords. Each record may hold information about, for example, a voter ora user of the system. This information may be contained in fields withinthe record. Cross-referencing of fields across records is a fundamentalbasis of relational databases, and permits data to be correlated andaggregated across multiple records over multiple files. In particular,in various embodiments, in addition to other data fields that holdinformation about a voter, each record is provided two other fields: avoter ID field and a friend ID field. The voter ID field identifies whothe record is about, and contains the voter ID value of the individualdescribed by information contained within the record. The friend IDfield indicates who created the record, and contains the voter ID valueof the person that placed the information into the fields of the recordor caused the record to be made. The organization may be given a unique,predefined voter ID of, for example, zero or blank. Hence, anyinformation originating from the organization may have a correspondingfriend ID value of zero. The BOE data, for example, or other datacollected by the organization, may be given a friend ID of zero.Information entered by the volunteers or other staff of the organizationin their capacity as such may also be given a friend ID value of zero.On the other hand, information entered by users about themselves orother voters is given a friend ID of the user so providing theinformation. Additionally, information entered by volunteers or staff ofthe organization that is personal in nature and refers to their ownfriends and family list may be given a friend ID of that volunteer orstaff member, rather than the predefined value of the organization. Whena non-voter is added to the system, the corresponding record may beassigned a bogus voter ID, such as “novote000001”.

Because it is generally assumed that information that a user entersabout himself or herself may be passed on to the organization, anyrecord that has a friend ID value that matches the voter ID value forthat record may be viewed by the organization. Similarly, any recordthat has a friend ID value equal to the person requesting that recordmay be viewed by that person, but not by any other, including theorganization. Hence, for example, a record created by a user John abouta user Smith would have a voter ID field for “Smith”, but a friend IDfield for “John.” John may view the record, as the friend ID field isthe same as his voter ID. Smith, however, may not, nor may theorganization, as their respective voter IDs do not match the friend IDfor John. Note that when Smith creates a similar record about himself,however, this record may be seen by the organization, as the friend IDfield for this record would match the voter ID field for the record.John, however, would not be able to see the record. It is thereforepossible for a member to store formation about a voter that is, in fact,contrary to what that voter has actually said about himself or herself.Privacy between users and the organization is thus maintained byreference to the friend ID and voter ID fields within the records.

A distinction may be drawn between voter record (reference) data fromthe BOE and field operations (user) data entered by the campaign ororganization. The rules outlined above may apply to field operationsdata. For voter data, the rules may be changed somewhat. For voter data,there may be two tables that are identical in structure: the voter tableand the supporter table. The voter table may have voter records with,for example, a zero in the friend ID field. The supporter table includesnon-voters entered into the system. The friend ID may be set to thevoter ID of the user who entered the information if the user is creatinga “private friend”. Otherwise, the information is being entered forfield operations and is stored with a blank or zero friend ID. Memberscan only see records in the supporter table whose friend ID matchestheir voter ID—they cannot see records with blank or zero friend IDs.Members can see all records in the voter table (although some fields inthese records may be hidden, such as the apartment number)—note againthat all these records may have blank or zero friend IDs. Volunteers(and up) can see records in the supporter table with blank friend IDs,friend IDs that match their own voter ID, and friend IDs that match thevoter IDs in the same record. Volunteers can also see all records in thevoter table. So, for the supporter table, the standard rules apply: itis user-entered data after all. The voter table is the exception, due toits being reference data, and in this case any user may see the data,except for certain predefined hidden fields that are made unavailablefor privacy-related reasons.

In another embodiment, as shown in FIG. 7, new users who register theire-mails are presented the option to link immediately to their voterrecord, or to simply join and link later. As shown in FIG. 8, in suchcase the new member may enter information about himself, which isentered into the database and made available to the organization. Thisalso allows individuals who are not registered to vote to join thesystem as a user, and to then build their own voter list of friends andfamily.

When a “non-voter user” links to her voter record, the system mustproperly transfer information, including what the user entered aboutherself, what she entered about her friends and family, and what thestaff and volunteers entered about her. This transfer can also occur inboth directions (from non-voter to voter, and voter to non-voter) whenmore up-to-date BOE data is put into the system, as is doneperiodically.

In one embodiment, all of this is achieved by creating a non-voterrecord that parallels the true voter records in internal structure andexternal function and display. If enough information is provided, thisnon-voter record can be connected to actual voters in a household.

In one embodiment, this non-voter record is also used to add friends andfamily who are not yet registered to the voter list of friends andfamily. This allows e-mails to be sent to anyone, and encourages thosewho are not registered to get registered. These “non-voter friends” arecompletely hidden from the staff and volunteers (in other words, notjust the friend relationship, but even the existence of thesenon-voters).

In another embodiment, a configuration option exists to allowinformation a user enters about himself to be seen by all users, by noother users, or by “Mutual Friends”. Mutual friends are defined as twousers who have included each other on their voter list of friends andfamily. Even in this case, mutual friends can only see information aboutthemselves (including e-mail addresses) but not information on anyoneelse on the other's voter list. For example, as shown in FIG. 15, mutualfriends may view each other's endorsements.

The generation of walksheets for canvassing purposes is known, and maybe provided by various embodiments of the GOTV drive sub-system. Forexample, as shown in FIG. 33, data sheets may be printed for the benefitof canvassers, which contain the relevant information of each voter tobe contacted, and offers columns with related elements to record viewsobtained from the voter. These sheets may be automatically generated bythe system, following, for example, the intended route of the canvasser.As shown in FIG. 35, summaries may be made of the various sections of aneighborhood, such as by building, street, precinct or the like, whichmay be sorted to permit canvassers to determine the most likely regionsto target. FIG. 36 shows a typical walk sheet that provides a broadoverview for the canvasser of the route to take. The route may includenumerous legs, and each leg may be provided a summary, such as the totalnumber of “My Targets” on that leg, the total number of “My Voters” onthat leg, and the total number of registered voters. However, in someembodiments, a voter score may also be attached to each leg. The voterscore may be based upon, for example, the average voter score of anygroup or sub-group within that leg.

The exporting of data from a database is also known, and may also beprovided by the system. For example, FIG. 37 illustrates the exportationof a voter list into a spreadsheet format.

Although the organization may be prevented from viewing certain privateinformation of the users, as previously discussed, information about auser made available to the organization by that user may be viewed. Thisinformation may include, for example, login dates and times. Hence, insome aspects, the system may permit the organization to view the loginlogs of the users, as shown in FIG. 39. Also, non-personal aggregateinformation may also be presented to the organization. For example, theorganization may see how many people a user has in their list of friendsand family (though not the actual identities of the people therein), andthe number of e-mails sent. Similarly, the organization may see how manypeople have linked to a user (i.e., have that user in their list offriends and family), and how many e-mails that user has received. Anexample screen shot of such information is shown in FIG. 40, aspreviously discussed.

Alternate Embodiments

The Internet shown here is the well known network of computers which nowvirtually ubiquitously enables data communications all over the world.Other types of data networks may be used in place of the Internet.

Although only a single user is shown here, it will recognized that alarge number of users may be connected to the Lincoln Voters inventionat different times and/or simultaneously.

Still further, hardware implementations using different hardwarecomponents may be used other than those described herein. Also, otherdatabases or data structures may be used than those described herein.

In the foregoing description, the method and apparatus of the presentinvention have been described with reference to a number of examplesthat are not to be considered limiting. Rather, it is to be understoodand expected that variations in the principles of the method andapparatus herein disclosed may be made by one skilled in the art and itis intended that such modifications, changes, and substitutions are tobe included within the scope of the present invention as set forth inthe appended claims. The specification and the drawings are accordinglyto be regarded in an illustrative rather than in a restrictive sense.

1. A central server having an application code therein for performing amethod for generating a voter score comprising: determining, for atimeframe of a first voter's voter history encompassing at least twoelections, the total number of times that the first voter voted;determining, for the timeframe of the first voter's voter historyencompassing at least two elections, the total number of times the firstvoter was eligible to vote; utilizing the total number of times that thefirst voter voted and the total number of times the first voter waseligible to vote to generate a voter score indicative of the firstvoter's voter history encompassing at least two elections; and storingthe voter score on a database connected to the central server.
 2. Themethod of claim 1 wherein the voter score is a function of the ratio ofthe total number of times that the first voter voted to the total numberof times the first voter was eligible to vote.
 3. The method of claim 1wherein determining the total number of times the first voter waseligible to vote comprises determining whether the first voter was oflegal age to vote at a time within the timeframe.
 4. The method of claim1 wherein determining the total number of times the first voter waseligible to vote comprises determining whether the first voter waseligible to vote in a primary election or a special election held at atime within the timeframe.
 5. The method of claim 4 further comprising:determining whether the primary election or the special election washeld in a precinct of the first voter at the time within the timeframefor which the first voter was eligible to vote.
 6. The method of claimof 5 wherein determining if the primary election or the special electionwas held in the precinct of the first voter comprises determiningwhether one or more votes for the primary election or the specialelection were cast in the precinct of the first voter.
 7. The method ofclaim 1 wherein determining the total number of times the first voterwas eligible to vote comprises determining whether the first voter wasregistered to vote at a time within the timeframe.
 8. The method ofclaim 1 wherein the voter score further comprises an indication ofwhether the first voter voted in a primary election or a specialelection.
 9. The method of claim 1 wherein the timeframe is the fourmost recent years.
 10. The method of claim 1 wherein the timeframeincludes the entire voting history of the first voter.
 11. The method ofclaim 1 further comprising: determining, for a timeframe of a secondvoter's voter history encompassing at least two elections, the totalnumber of times that the second voter voted; determining, for thetimeframe of the second voter's voter history encompassing at least twoelections, the total number of times the second voter was eligible tovote; and further utilizing the total number of times that the secondvoter voted, and the total number of times the second voter was eligibleto vote to generate a second voter score indicative of the secondvoter's voter history encompassing at least two elections; and storingthe second voter score on a database connected to the central server.12. The method of claim 1 further comprising: determining at least avoting opportunity within the timeframe of the first voter's voterhistory encompassing at least two elections; and for each votingopportunity within the timeframe of the first voter's voter historyencompassing at least two elections presenting: text identifying thevoting opportunity; and text indicating whether the first voter voted,did not vote, or was ineligible to vote in the voting opportunity.